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Thursday, October 25, 2012

DAR - Gathering Documents

Last week my friend Neva and I went to the Library of Virginia in Richmond with a specific list of documents to find in order to get
closer to the golden prize of membership in the Fort Nelson Chapter of the
Virginia DAR. We always joke that we actually go for lunch - the research is secondary.

It has been far too long since I last visited the
library. Hallelujah the LVA has upgraded
the machines for viewing microfilm. We
used to use machines that look like this:

from Google Images

It’s not that they were difficult to use. Just cumbersome. If you wanted a copy of an image, you had to
rewind the film, take it off the machine and move to another machine, fast forward
to the desired image, insert your library debit card hoping all the while you
still had enough money on it, and print. Likely the paper was 16x20. If the film was scratched or faded, the copy
was too.

But the new machines are miracles of tweaking goodness:

from Google Images

You still wind the film on the same way, but you stay put
and save an image to your flash drive.You can zoom, change the contrast, brighten or darken, switch black
images with white writing to white images with black writing, and capture as
much or as little of the image as you want.No more sliding dollars into a machine in exchange for a barely readable
document.

A Rockingham County, Virginia birth register for Walter
Davis which named his parents, Mitchell and Martha Ann Davis

A Greene County, Virginia marriage register for Walter
Davis and Mary Frances Jollett, which named both of their parents

None of the information was new (except Martha’s father’s
name), but all documents are necessary for actual proof of lineage.

I was disappointed that I did not find a couple pieces of
information that SHOULD have been in the library. First of all, Vogt & Kethley’s Albemarle
County Marriage Records contains an abstract of the marriage record for Leonard
Davis and Mary Marshall; however, I did not find it in the Albemarle microfilm. While I was hoping to see the record, the
fact is I really don’t even need it.
Leonard has already been proven as a patriot, so the various details of
his birth, marriage, and death are already on record with the DAR.

My challenge will be to prove Leonard had a son Leonard Jr.
who married Fanny Wyant and had a son named Mitchell. Neva found an index for a marriage record in
Rockingham County. Based on some old
research, I had Orange County in my notes but was glad for confirmation of the
error. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the
actual marriage record nor did I find birth or death records for Leonard Jr.

Lastly, I didn’t find a death certificate for Walter Davis. I will check on this again. It’s possible
that death certificates for Page County, Virginia in 1934 carried over to a
second roll of microfilm. Maybe I simply overlooked it in my haste.

So the hunt to connect the chain from Mitchell to Leonard
Sr. continues. Sounds like Neva and I need to start planning another lunch research trip.

Ahh, I remember using those old microfilm machines back in the day. It was so exciting finding something you were looking for. I haven't been out in the field on a real genealogy search in many years so it was exciting to hear about all your finds. Hopefully next time you will find the missing pieces. On another note I joined the DAR 20 years ago when I first started my genealogy research and when my husband and I visited Washington, DC in 1998 we visited the DAR house their. Quite a bit of history!

Ah yes! Those lovely old microfilm machines! I know them well. I've spent many an hour looking through microfilms on them, including census records back when they weren't on the internet yet. Imagine having to actually order, and then wait for, a census record hoping your ancestor was on that specific film?

Ya, these young whipper-snapper genealogists don't know what they missed out on back in the old days!

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About Me

My name is Wendy. About twenty years ago, I helped my mother research the Jolletts. Since retiring from teaching, I have expanded my research which I share here. When I’m not looking for my own family, I index for FamilySearch and the Greene County Historical Society.
Welcome to Jollett Etc. Please leave a comment to let me know you were here. If you have more information or believe we are related, EMAIL ME at wendymath at cox dot net